Thursday, March 31, 2016

During the third week of March 2016, the Iraqi forces were
still concentrating upon clearing out Anbar province after their victory in
Ramadi, and began a new operation in Ninewa that started off slowly. This put
added pressure upon the Islamic State and increased its move towards terrorism
and insurgent attacks.

There were 135 attacks in Iraq reported in the press from
March 22-28. That was roughly the same as the previous week when there were
130, and lower than the first two weeks. Baghdad had the most incidents with
71, and there were 20 each in Anbar and Ninewa, 10 in Babil, 7 in Salahaddin, 6
in Diyala, and one in Kirkuk.

Those incidents led to 206 deaths and 420 injuries. 1
Turkish Soldiers, 2 Sahwa, 4 Hashd al-Shaabi, 6 Peshmerga, 35 members of the
Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), and 158 civilians were killed, and 1 Turkish
soldiers, 1 Sahwa, 3 Peshmerga, 17 Hashd, 80 ISF, and 318 civilians were
wounded. Baghdad had the most fatalities with 73, followed by 52 in Babil, 40
in Ninewa, 29 in Anbar, 10 in Diyala, and one each in Kirkuk and Salahaddin.

The Iraqi forces were involved in several operations in
Anbar province. There was a lot of confusion about Kubaisa in the center of the
governorate. Two areas were said to be cleared and the police
station taken, and
then the military said that didn’t
happen. The previous week the whole town was said to have been freed,
and then the ISF reported
that didn’t happen. Then on March
26 the town was declared liberated once again. This was the third time
since September the Iraqi forces had gone through the area.

The Hit offensive has also gone in fits and spurts. The
police directorate was cleared on March
27, and two
towns the next day. The week before operations there had to be called off
as ISF units were sent
to Baghdad to provide security for the Sadr demonstrations.

As plans to liberate Fallujah have stalled, the joint forces
went into Saqlawiya
and Albu Shijil to the west of the city. Two sections of the district were freed in the middle of the
week. This area has been contested since July.

Finally, the Iraqi forces were still fighting for Garma
where Garma Bridge
was taken. IS still holds the center of the town, which the ISF and Hashd have
not been able to take in two years of fighting.

The Islamic State responded to these actions with 16 attacks
throughout the center of Anbar. One suicide car bomb and two suicide bombers
were able to hit the Iraqi forces, while they claimed to have destroyed 12 car
bombs, 16 suicide car bombs, and killed 17 suicide bombers. As usual, a lot of
those numbers were inflated. For example, IS claimed 5 suicide bombers attacked
the Ain Assad base. The Iraqi forces claimed eight were killed with no
casualties. It turns out two got into the base and killed 18 soldiers.

In Babil a suicide
bomber exploded his device at a soccer match in Iskandiriya. That left 41
dead and 105 wounded. The next day a suicide bomber was killed
in Yusifiya. This is another sign that IS is reverting to terrorism and headline grabbing bombings as it loses territory and is thrown on the defensive.

After a large dip in attacks the previous week due to
increased security due to protests, incidents went back up in Baghdad from
March 22-28. There were 71 for the week. As usual the south was the main target
of IS with 25 incidents including 17 IEDs. Crime and vigilantism continued as
well with 3 major robberies, 8 kidnappings, and 12 bodies being dumped.

There was a security sweep through Baquba to try to hunt
down IS sleeper cells. A Hashd leader claimed
there were still 200-300 IS fighters in the province in places like Mukhisa,
the Hamrin Mountains and Mandali. After a series of mass casualty bombings in
the governorate, there have been protests demanding that security officials be
fired and the public better protected. In the last two weeks however, there
have been single digit attacks in the province.

Kirkuk, which had seen a spate of attacks upon the Peshmerga
and executions in Hawija, was almost completely quite during the week. One
person was shot and killed and that was the only reported violence.

The Iraqi forces launched a new offensive in the Makhmour
district of Ninewa. The government portrayed this as the start of the
liberation of the province, but the goals were actually much more modest. The
main point was to clear out IS cells, which had been attacking military bases
in the district. In the longer term it was hoped that Qayara
could be taken, which is an important supply hub between Ninewa and Kirkuk.
From all foreignreporting
on the operations things have not gone well initially. Poor weather kept
Coalition air strikes at bay and made the terrain muddy and hard to maneuver
through. The Iraqi forces initially claimed that they had taken eight villages
and that 80% of Qayara
had been freed, but that was propaganda. Only three towns were freed,
and the main goal of the first day, taking Nasir, was not
achieved. The 15th Division was in charge of the attack, which
is a new unit. It should be no surprise then that it was struggling in its
first combat. Turkey also got involved
in the fight when another one of its soldiers was killed and one wounded in an
IS rocket attack upon a camp it conducts training in. Turkey responded with
artillery fire and air strikes in the area. It was just those types of
incidents that inspired the Makhmour operation in the first place.

IS responded to the government effort with a wave of suicide
and car bombs. Two were able to hit Iraqi forces, while they claimed to have
destroyed six suicide car bombs and killed 21 suicide bombers. Like in Anbar,
those numbers were often inflated. For instance, initial reports had 5 suicide
bombers killed in an attack at the end of the week, but by the end of the day
that had gone up to 17 killed.

Yazidi militias continued their push in the Sinjar distract.
Two
towns were cleared, which interdicted an IS supply route to Syria.

In Mosul, IS executed 30 people. In January there was a huge
wave of executions with several hundred people being killed almost every week,
but those numbers have gone back down since then. There was some speculation
that IS was cracking down upon the population in anticipation of a Mosul
offensive. Whatever the cause that appears to be over now.

Salahaddin was another province that saw hardly any security
breakdowns. There were only 7 incidents during the week leading to one death.
Violence has been going down there since Baiji was retaken. There are
occasional large clashes in the northeast in places like the Ajeel and Alas oil
fields, the Baiji district, and the Makhoul Mountains, but otherwise the rest
of the province is relatively stable with occasional IS terrorist and insurgent
attacks. On the other hand, tensions continue to be high in Tuz Kharmato
between Turkmen and Kurds. Kurdish Special Forces were deployed
there during the week.

There were only three successful car bombs in Iraq during
the week. Two went off in Ninewa and one in Anbar targeting the security forces.
36 more were said to be destroyed, but the real number is probably less than
that. Overall, IS appears to be launching fewer car bombs. In December and
January there was a car bomb campaign with over 60 going off, but in February
there were less than 9 successful bombings, and March looks like it will have a
similar low figure.

About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com